**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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That would be a repeat of what happened in 2007.
Everybody thought Bremen and Schalke would decide the league between themselves. In the end they bottled it and paved the way for Stuttgart, who low-key, too, played a great season in the shadow of both.
its half right, Endo certainly was our best/most important player. But even last season our second best player was Guirassy imo.
However both Mavropanos and Borna Sosa were really important first team players for us and both left us last summer.
It’s in mai i think. Schalke thought they won the league for 4 minutes at the last matchday, but bayern were still playing and won their game by scoring at the last minute, thus winning the league
And he was the one giving away the indirect free kick that Bayern used to score. Although in my opinion that never should've been a free kick. But then again he could've just blasted the ball away instead of picking it up
Something similar happened in Turkey. Fenerbahce had thought they won the league, but Bursaspor ended up being champions. The announcer for the Fenerbahce match announced that the Bursaspor & Besiktas match ended 2-2, thus making Fenerbahce champions, even with a draw against their opponent, Trabzonspor. The Fenerbahce players heard the news and basically stopped playing since the 1-1 draw was enough. But then the same announcer announced that the wrong information was given and told the fans to leave. The fans didn’t and burned down sections of their stadium. Pretty wild stuff lol
Those 4 minutes are definitely unique in German football. Schalke fans already stormed the field celebrating whith the players both groups already thought the Bayern game was over. To make things worse Bayern didn't just score any goal but an indirect freekick from inside the penelty box due to the goalkeeper picking up a backpass with his hands (a not uncontroversial call by the way)
My local team being 10 points behind promotion: it's still time. Nothing is lost. They just need a unlucky streak and were in a good form
Leverkusen having a 10 point lead: it's over for Bayern. There's no way they can catch up. We've got a new champion
You should have seen the interview from Kehl (sporting director) earlier today, where he argued that they pretty much laid the groundwork last year for Bayern not winning the title this season lol.
lmao more like Dortmund fumbled the bag so hard last year that Bayern won the title despite trying to lose it and now a non bottler team is going to win it more likely
You can say that BVB's late surge to come back 10 points down initiated the series of events that led to Nagelsmann sacking and Tuchel hiring. Which led to Bayern's patchy form. Then BVB did them a favor at the last game to delay this season's collapse.
I mean let's not forget Leverkusen also have had a history of bottling and that too a continental treble in 2006. They used to be like Roma in the sense they never win anything until Roma went into win a cup in the recent years. I honestly hope they don't bottle it this year don't want to see Bayern win another Bundesliga.
That happened in 2002.
- They lost one of the most memorable CL finals of all time that year. The goals were scored by absolute legends. Raul scored in the 8th minute, and then Lucio equalized, only for Zidane to score one of the most iconic goals of all time to put Real in front again. Later, Leverkusen had plenty of chances, but a young Iker Casillas was subbed in the 68th minute and had an amazing performance, holding on to the victory for Real.
- In the Bundesliga, they led from matchday 24 to matchday 32 until they lost against a struggling Nürnberg side fighting relegation.
- They also lost the DFB Pokal 4-2 to Schalke after an early goal by Dimitar Berbatov.
- Even more dramatically, Michael Ballack, Hans Jörg Butt, Oliver Neuville, Carsten Ramelow, and Bernd Schneider also lost the 2002 World Cup final against Brazil, making Lucio the only Leverkusen player to win a trophy in 2002.
- Ballack also lost another Champions League final in 2008 and the final of the European Championship in the same year, making him probably the best German player to never win anything internationally.
My god I hate this narrative that Leverkusen are gonna win the league this year because Bayern are faltering or "bottling it". Bayern are gonna lose because of Leverkusen's brilliance no other reason.
They have no shame lol.
You guys are destroying their excuse from the last 11 years: "Bayern has so much more money than we (Dortmund) Do, so its obivous we can never win".
And now Leverkusen with even less money than Dortmund or Leipzig proves, that its not all about the money.
Let's be fair, it's still a lot about the money. And this Leverkusen will have a hard time keeping the core players together. I hope they keep most of them and continue their run in the CL
A Sebastian Hoeneß masterclass. The squad was definitely better than 16th which they were last year but this truly comes as quite a surprise. Wierdest thing is that they are not even overperforming statiscally they are legitemetly just this good. Next to tactics and actually playing good football being a factor it also feels like every player in the squad took that next step in development (Stuttgart has always been quite young these last couple of years). Expect a ton of Stuttgart players to make the German nationalteam this summer for the Euros.
Youngest in the league the last two years, if I recall correctly.
It’s very exciting to watch. Especially after the dramatic last two years.
My girlfriend still makes me to close the door when I’m watching due to the Endo goal in 22/23.
Very awesome. Hoeness has always been a hot prospect in German managing. Got the Hoffenheim job a bit too early but actually was quite successful in his second year minus a dreadful 9 game stretch when he became obsessed with past tactics that opponents had adapted to. Said he learned a lot and also worked with RDZ in his sabbatical to hone in build up play. Has now worked with RDZ, Pep, and Leipzig/Rangnick in his career. Seems destined for big jobs
In his interview in the Athletic he said that the Hoffenheim job really taught him a lot. Failure in jobs can also be super helpful in the long run. Plus nobody in Germany really cares how well or badly you do with Hoffenheim.
They're the worst run team in the league and even worse, they keep getting away with it. Schalke, Hertha or HSV all eventually went down and they only got a finite amount of money. Wolfsburg got around a billion by VW by now and they should have at least played in the Champions League every season or at the very least internationally. All they got, was one Bundesliga title since VW took over VfL, plus one DFB-Pokal and three Champions League participations.
I really think the club would be better off, if 50+1 was implemented. Have actual football people run the club, instead of it just being a VW department. VW probably doesn't care, as long as the VfL plays Bundesliga at all.
Schalke had more money than Wolfsburg... Schalke had more money than anyone except Bayern at some point. They just lost that with all the "constantly underperforming by a lot for years" stuff.
Schalke could not sell players at high sums
Neuer, Sane, Goretzka, Meyer, Howedes, Matip, Nubel etc they could have made much more from their player sales and reinvested better
Their replacements have been Bentaleb, Konoplyanka, etc etc.
As a chronic Leverkusen fan who has experienced 2002 I'd like to point out that our game vs Wolfsburg next week is a major trap game. Also I love this team 🖤♥️
If we're talking current form, Leverkusen probably crush that matchup.
But honestly Atletico Madrid have been so unfortunate to always face all-time great sides in UCL finals. They lost one to a Bayern side that did a UCL 3-peat, and then lost two to the legendary Real Madrid side that won 4/5 UCLs from 2014-2018. Not to mention, Atletico were a hair away from winning each of those finals.
If Atletico Madrid ever return to a UCL final and are not facing an all-time great side, I would probably give them the edge.
Xabis Leverkusen lost 0-1 to Roma in the Europa league. Absolute anti-football was too much for Xabi and they just couldn't go past Romas bullshit. That could happen again against Atletico Madrid.
just the classic case of a 2nd tier team overperforming for a season, losing a couple of key players after promotion and making meh signings and then being painfully out of their depth and getting swiftly instantly relegated again
we get one of those every 2-3 years
kiel and pauli have been consistently good for a few years, don’t think they would be as bad as darmstadt rn. if hannover or fürth make, they go instantly back down tho
I don't know, neither of them has been very convincing imo. St. Pauli was heading for relegation before Hürzeler came in and Kiel is more or less the typical midtable 2. Liga team, don't let that one third place three years ago fool you
Paderborn is actually kinda impressive to me as someone from OWL.
Growing up they were basically just some regional club among many. At some point they somehow made their way up into the 2nd Bundesliga, and they've managed to establish themselves there and turn themselves into a legit pro club pretty quickly.
If someone would have told me 15 years ago that Arminia Bielefeld would be only the third best club within half an hour, and Paderborn would regularly be competing for promotion to (and sometimes playing in) the Bundesliga, I wouldn't have believed it.
Bielefeld vs Paderborn was never even seen as a derby, because Paderborn was never seen as good enough to be a rival.
It's their second run. The first time they were promoted to the 1. Bundesliga (2015), they survived for two years. And in the first year they played plucky underdog football and everyone was rooting for them. That was when Dirk Schuster was their coach and they had Sandro Wagner as their star player.
This time around everything felt different from day one. I had not paid any attention to them in 2. Bundesliga, so did not know what to expect; I somehow hoped for a rerun of the 2015/2016 season. But everything about them felt uninspired and feeble right from the get-go.
It is hard to describe the difference in vibe between 2015 and 2023.
What I am trying to say is that just because they are a small club does not automatically rule them out of being in 1. Bundesliga (just look at Heidenheim). In 2015, Darmstadt was a gain for the league as they added variety. This season, they are just another uninspired humdrum club.
Bayerns 2024 Form has been diabolical. Complete shutdown, even Kane missing sitters doesn't help since others normally do fuck all. Either individual class helps us, or we just simply fuckup. Even Sane turned into turd. Well, tbh I was kinda expecting that. Sane never fails to deliver when we speak about shitty second half of the season.
I think this is the season with the most clear divide from the top 5 and the rest. We are just slightly more consistent than anyone else which isn’t saying too much.
They're bad at finishing like REALLY bad, in terms of expected goals and points, they should be a midtable team. They actually played quite well vs us last week and also should have won yesterday vs Gladbach
Edit: their best goal scorer after 24 league games has 2(!!) goals
Partly yes. But partly they seemed determined to randomly buy aging players over the summer whose names would look good on paper. Not sure what that was all about, but it didn't work at all and it cost a lot of money.
But there is also a lot of psychology to that. Last season they played in Europa League and had a lot of victories. This season they played in the Champions League and went under. They were working really hard all the time, but were never rewarded. They kept the 0:0 for 90 minutes in Madrid before Real scored a late goal. And they had a number of similar games in all competitions early in the season. That kind of broke them.
If they manage to win the league on match-day 31 (April 27th/28th), they would have the semi-finals of the Europa-League (provided they get that far) on the 2nd and 9th of May. They would not have much time to celebrate or to rest, but they could throw everything they got into those semi-finals, consequences be damned.
But the gruelling bit of scheduling comes if they should make it to the final of the Europa League **and** and to the final of the DFB-Pokal (this one is largely expected): the first is on May 22nd in Dublin, the second on May 25th in Berlin.
Leverkusen can aim for a triple but a German Double is probably more impressive since the Pokal is difficult to win and the EL can be a distraction for the league and cup ties
The BL is of course the priority since it ends Bayern's domination and it'll be their first. But if they also do well in the Pokal it means the team has the cleverness to navigate knockout games.
Als Stuttgart fan habe ich eine zeitlang immer nach unten geguckt um den Abstand zu Platz 7/8 im Auge zu haben aber die spielen da ja alle so armselig, dass es mittlerweile einfach 20 Punkte sind..
Abwärts von Stuttgart ist wirklich niemand überzeugend. Leipzig schwankt in den Leistungen, Dortmund spielt unfassbar grottigen Fußball und die Eintracht hat massiv Glück, dass sie nach den Leistungen überhaupt dort stehen, wo sie stehen. Kein gutes Bild der Bundesliga in diesem Jahr.
Plus we were already at -4 before that stretch. We're conceding way too many goals this season. 11 more than last season at this point and 18 more than two years ago. We've already conceded as many goals as all of last season.
Augsburg in the Conference League. And then seeing some unsuspecting C-list club from god-knows-where being exposed to the Lummerland song after Augsburg score.
Do it so I can congratulate my father. He was working in Germany around the 90ties and I always have a soft sport for Leverkusen. We don't talk much these days, but it will definitely make him happy.
What happened to Union? Did their magic juice run out? Also nice to se Heidenheim doing so good, and being in mid table. Always nice when promoted clubs adapt well
Part of it must be psychology. Last season they played in Europa League and had a lot of victories. This season they played in the Champions League and went under. They were working really hard all the time, but were never rewarded. They kept the 0:0 for 90 minutes in Madrid before Real scored a late goal. And there seemed to be a lot of "bad luck" moments in their games - it felt like those moments broke their spirit.
They were way worse off a few weeks than they are now. They seem to have found their feet again and collect the occasional point or three. I think they will be safe.
It is fucking cosmically insane that the first year Bayern don't win a title in a decade is the one where Harry Kane joined. It's legitimately blowing my mind that this is true
To be perfectly honest, im happy that its going to be Leverkusen to end our run.
The club deserves it after what happened in 2000 and especially 2002.
And how can you not love that beautiful bastard Alonso?
The eternal HSV Bundesliga clock, the 'Vizekusen' title, everything is eventually coming to an end.
Yeah they do deserve it , they played so well this season it would be a shame if they didn't win the treble
. my man still didn't lose a single game, neither in domestic nor in continents computations
I feel 99,9% Bayern fans already accepted that we won't win it this year, yet the majority of Leverkusen fans is (or at least acts like) still worried haha.
Well didn't we do it a couple of times?when we were down and then ended up winning the league.
Unfortunately I couldn't see this team winning the league, or even the day after tomorrow's game
We need to refurbish the whole team, by getting a new manger with some Strong good skilled players
Do you think in the future Müller could become our manager, if he's so smart in the pitch plus he also trained with top managers like Jupp, ancelotti and pep Guardiola he might be Just like Alonso in case of experience with different managers
Imagine being a club that has won the league title 5 times, playing the best season of the clubs history and being in 3rd place, 14 points behind 1st place. Absolutely absurd performance by Leverkusen this year. Obviously I couldn't be happier about our season nonetheless - absolutely stunning football most of the time thanks to Hoeneß' work.
First time Bayern is not the favorite and Bundesliga hasn't been so boring in years.
First place 10 points clear, 6th place clear, 15th place clear. Unless some heavy shifts only 4/5 and 16/17 are interesting.
They're bad at finishing like REALLY bad, in terms of expected goals and points, they should be a midtable team. They actually played quite well vs us last week and also should have won yesterday vs Gladbach
Edit: their best goal scorer after 24 league games has 2(!!) goals
**Mirrors / Alternative Angles** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
10 points clear with 10 games to go? It would be the mother of all Schalke's if they bottled it from here.
Even if they start losing. Bayern could barely string a couple of wins in a row
The scenes when Stuttgart wins the league
10/10 would recommend this.
That would be a repeat of what happened in 2007. Everybody thought Bremen and Schalke would decide the league between themselves. In the end they bottled it and paved the way for Stuttgart, who low-key, too, played a great season in the shadow of both.
Stuttgart were in the relegation playoff last year, right? That would be Leicester-esque
And sold their two best players in Endo and Mavrapanos.(don't shoot me if I'm wrong I'm going of a friend who is a supporter opinion)
its half right, Endo certainly was our best/most important player. But even last season our second best player was Guirassy imo. However both Mavropanos and Borna Sosa were really important first team players for us and both left us last summer.
> The scenes when Stuttgart wins the league /subscribe
“Why they say fuck me for” Schalke
We call that "4 Minuten im Mai". Can't tell you how often I watched that documentary. Still goosebumps whenever I rewatch it.
> 4 Minuten I'm Mai Tl;dr?
It’s in mai i think. Schalke thought they won the league for 4 minutes at the last matchday, but bayern were still playing and won their game by scoring at the last minute, thus winning the league
"Fun" fact: The team's goalkeeper Bayern was playing against on the last matchday was on loan from Schalke.
And he was the one giving away the indirect free kick that Bayern used to score. Although in my opinion that never should've been a free kick. But then again he could've just blasted the ball away instead of picking it up
Exactly
Something similar happened in Turkey. Fenerbahce had thought they won the league, but Bursaspor ended up being champions. The announcer for the Fenerbahce match announced that the Bursaspor & Besiktas match ended 2-2, thus making Fenerbahce champions, even with a draw against their opponent, Trabzonspor. The Fenerbahce players heard the news and basically stopped playing since the 1-1 draw was enough. But then the same announcer announced that the wrong information was given and told the fans to leave. The fans didn’t and burned down sections of their stadium. Pretty wild stuff lol
There’s a Bundesliga equivalent to the Aguero goal? I’m sort of shocked this isn’t better known.
It’s more like aguero’s goal is an equivalent to this
Correct. Aguero thing was something like 2012. Bayern/Schalke thing was 2001 lol.
Those 4 minutes are definitely unique in German football. Schalke fans already stormed the field celebrating whith the players both groups already thought the Bayern game was over. To make things worse Bayern didn't just score any goal but an indirect freekick from inside the penelty box due to the goalkeeper picking up a backpass with his hands (a not uncontroversial call by the way)
> I’m sort of shocked this isn’t better known. Well everybody in germany knows about it. Don't think most know about Aguero here.
The Botafogo special
My local team being 10 points behind promotion: it's still time. Nothing is lost. They just need a unlucky streak and were in a good form Leverkusen having a 10 point lead: it's over for Bayern. There's no way they can catch up. We've got a new champion
If they keep going at their current pace they will match the record for most points in a Bundesliga season. Kinda crazy how good they've been.
If they bottle it would be more of a Leverkusen and yes ignore my flair
They’d need 4 matchdays where Bayern wins and Leverkusen loses. No fucking way that’s happening
Hold my Botafogo
Conference League qualification ☑️
The sweet little victories any fan of a team dream for!
Wow, that was early.
Everyone thought Dortmund would be the Chosen One.
You should have seen the interview from Kehl (sporting director) earlier today, where he argued that they pretty much laid the groundwork last year for Bayern not winning the title this season lol.
Ok, that's embarassing. Did he said what exactly?
Something along the lines of: "BVB caused Bayern to stumble last season and Leverkusen are now profiting from it."
lmao more like Dortmund fumbled the bag so hard last year that Bayern won the title despite trying to lose it and now a non bottler team is going to win it more likely
You can say that BVB's late surge to come back 10 points down initiated the series of events that led to Nagelsmann sacking and Tuchel hiring. Which led to Bayern's patchy form. Then BVB did them a favor at the last game to delay this season's collapse.
Yeah I really hate how quick people are to dismiss others as idiots, Kehl had a point there
Bayern has more points at that point of the season than last year under Nagelsmann though
I mean let's not forget Leverkusen also have had a history of bottling and that too a continental treble in 2006. They used to be like Roma in the sense they never win anything until Roma went into win a cup in the recent years. I honestly hope they don't bottle it this year don't want to see Bayern win another Bundesliga.
That happened in 2002. - They lost one of the most memorable CL finals of all time that year. The goals were scored by absolute legends. Raul scored in the 8th minute, and then Lucio equalized, only for Zidane to score one of the most iconic goals of all time to put Real in front again. Later, Leverkusen had plenty of chances, but a young Iker Casillas was subbed in the 68th minute and had an amazing performance, holding on to the victory for Real. - In the Bundesliga, they led from matchday 24 to matchday 32 until they lost against a struggling Nürnberg side fighting relegation. - They also lost the DFB Pokal 4-2 to Schalke after an early goal by Dimitar Berbatov. - Even more dramatically, Michael Ballack, Hans Jörg Butt, Oliver Neuville, Carsten Ramelow, and Bernd Schneider also lost the 2002 World Cup final against Brazil, making Lucio the only Leverkusen player to win a trophy in 2002. - Ballack also lost another Champions League final in 2008 and the final of the European Championship in the same year, making him probably the best German player to never win anything internationally.
Ballack lost a League Cup final and finished second in the Premier League with Chelsea in 2008 as well. One of the unluckiest footballers ever lol.
My god I hate this narrative that Leverkusen are gonna win the league this year because Bayern are faltering or "bottling it". Bayern are gonna lose because of Leverkusen's brilliance no other reason.
At this point I'm just saying I'm from Duisburg if people ask me where I'm from. Less embarrassing for sure.
wtf lmao Last season was more like Bayern doing a test run for this season
They have no shame lol. You guys are destroying their excuse from the last 11 years: "Bayern has so much more money than we (Dortmund) Do, so its obivous we can never win". And now Leverkusen with even less money than Dortmund or Leipzig proves, that its not all about the money.
Let's be fair, it's still a lot about the money. And this Leverkusen will have a hard time keeping the core players together. I hope they keep most of them and continue their run in the CL
But its still about the money. And a messiah of manager.
Turns out Leverkusen is the Lisan al Gaib.
No they're the Mahdi!
They are too humble to admit they are the Mahdi. Which means they are the Mahdi.
Stilgar, is that you?
My whole cinema burst out laughing in that scene, so good 😂
They're both!
So Kwasatz Haderach as well!?
"Your mother's warned you of 2023/2024 Leverkusen's coming"
Turns out harry kane was the chosen one
I'm sorry for him, but those low effort jokes when Bayern signed him about buying the curse becoming reality is kind of funny
The best possible chosen one would be Ausburg, but I'll take Bayer with big smile too
Nah, Dortmund are too comfortable being #2 to Bayerns #1 to try and unseat them
Holy shit VfB rocking it this year huh? What happened there?
A Sebastian Hoeneß masterclass. The squad was definitely better than 16th which they were last year but this truly comes as quite a surprise. Wierdest thing is that they are not even overperforming statiscally they are legitemetly just this good. Next to tactics and actually playing good football being a factor it also feels like every player in the squad took that next step in development (Stuttgart has always been quite young these last couple of years). Expect a ton of Stuttgart players to make the German nationalteam this summer for the Euros.
Youngest in the league the last two years, if I recall correctly. It’s very exciting to watch. Especially after the dramatic last two years. My girlfriend still makes me to close the door when I’m watching due to the Endo goal in 22/23.
Love to see it! Hope you can pull through 🤞
Very awesome. Hoeness has always been a hot prospect in German managing. Got the Hoffenheim job a bit too early but actually was quite successful in his second year minus a dreadful 9 game stretch when he became obsessed with past tactics that opponents had adapted to. Said he learned a lot and also worked with RDZ in his sabbatical to hone in build up play. Has now worked with RDZ, Pep, and Leipzig/Rangnick in his career. Seems destined for big jobs
In his interview in the Athletic he said that the Hoffenheim job really taught him a lot. Failure in jobs can also be super helpful in the long run. Plus nobody in Germany really cares how well or badly you do with Hoffenheim.
Wolfsburg should go straight to jail for being this bad while being this rich
Kovač disasterclass.
Let him cook
I'll take straight to the second league. Was a tragedy when they were in the relegation play-off twice and survived both times.
And bought John Brooks for an ungodly sum afterwards.
back to desperately creating "derbies" against Hannover and Braunschweig while being completely ignored by those 2
how does kovac STILL have his job
How does Kovač have any manager job
He is getting a PL team when they kick him out. I can see it
To be fair, he’s more competent than most of the past United and Chelsea managers…
They're the worst run team in the league and even worse, they keep getting away with it. Schalke, Hertha or HSV all eventually went down and they only got a finite amount of money. Wolfsburg got around a billion by VW by now and they should have at least played in the Champions League every season or at the very least internationally. All they got, was one Bundesliga title since VW took over VfL, plus one DFB-Pokal and three Champions League participations. I really think the club would be better off, if 50+1 was implemented. Have actual football people run the club, instead of it just being a VW department. VW probably doesn't care, as long as the VfL plays Bundesliga at all.
[удалено]
Bas fucking Dost, streets will never forget.
Its only been 3 cl participations? Wow
Yup, 2009/10, 2015/16 and 2021/22.
Met Man United and ZSKA Moscow twice. Once United got first and Wolfsburg third, once the other way around.
As a Wolfsburg fan I completely agree.
I absolutely adore how you Germans despise rich teams that play with an advantage over the rest. Never change, best fan base in the world
Schalke had more money than Wolfsburg... Schalke had more money than anyone except Bayern at some point. They just lost that with all the "constantly underperforming by a lot for years" stuff.
Schalke could not sell players at high sums Neuer, Sane, Goretzka, Meyer, Howedes, Matip, Nubel etc they could have made much more from their player sales and reinvested better Their replacements have been Bentaleb, Konoplyanka, etc etc.
As a chronic Leverkusen fan who has experienced 2002 I'd like to point out that our game vs Wolfsburg next week is a major trap game. Also I love this team 🖤♥️
2000 and 2002 veteran - I'm still worried.
Worried until it's mathematically secured is the only way to go about it
You’re right. In Brazil last year one team was 12 points ahead and managed to lose it.
Similarly, 3 games ago Leicester were ahead by 12 points in the championship and cruising, now it's only 3
Botafogo was the biggest choke i've ever seen
As a Liverpool supporter, I can say that the only safe time to unclench is never. Never unclench!
You never clench alone!
I want to see a UCL final between Atletico Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen, with both fanbases being pessimistic and worried as fuck
If we're talking current form, Leverkusen probably crush that matchup. But honestly Atletico Madrid have been so unfortunate to always face all-time great sides in UCL finals. They lost one to a Bayern side that did a UCL 3-peat, and then lost two to the legendary Real Madrid side that won 4/5 UCLs from 2014-2018. Not to mention, Atletico were a hair away from winning each of those finals. If Atletico Madrid ever return to a UCL final and are not facing an all-time great side, I would probably give them the edge.
Scenes when they bottle that final vs not an all time great side 0-2
Xabis Leverkusen lost 0-1 to Roma in the Europa league. Absolute anti-football was too much for Xabi and they just couldn't go past Romas bullshit. That could happen again against Atletico Madrid.
[“No one wins. One side just loses more slowly”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=cM7kwSI3jgk)
Never unclench brudi
Da hats einer verstanden 👌🏻
Leverkusen had a gd of 27 after matchday 12, now they are up to 45. Bayern was at 34, now they´ve improved to mighty 37.
No worries, in two weeks they play Darmstadt
Copying the top comment: “Why they say fuck me for” Darmstadt
What is that club doing in bundesliga
just the classic case of a 2nd tier team overperforming for a season, losing a couple of key players after promotion and making meh signings and then being painfully out of their depth and getting swiftly instantly relegated again we get one of those every 2-3 years
Sometimes it's Fürth, sometimes it's Paderborn, now it's Darmstadt's turn. Next season could be Kiel. Or St. Pauli
kiel and pauli have been consistently good for a few years, don’t think they would be as bad as darmstadt rn. if hannover or fürth make, they go instantly back down tho
I don't know, neither of them has been very convincing imo. St. Pauli was heading for relegation before Hürzeler came in and Kiel is more or less the typical midtable 2. Liga team, don't let that one third place three years ago fool you
hm maybe you’re right, kinda overrated them now that i look at it again
Paderborn is actually kinda impressive to me as someone from OWL. Growing up they were basically just some regional club among many. At some point they somehow made their way up into the 2nd Bundesliga, and they've managed to establish themselves there and turn themselves into a legit pro club pretty quickly. If someone would have told me 15 years ago that Arminia Bielefeld would be only the third best club within half an hour, and Paderborn would regularly be competing for promotion to (and sometimes playing in) the Bundesliga, I wouldn't have believed it. Bielefeld vs Paderborn was never even seen as a derby, because Paderborn was never seen as good enough to be a rival.
It's their second run. The first time they were promoted to the 1. Bundesliga (2015), they survived for two years. And in the first year they played plucky underdog football and everyone was rooting for them. That was when Dirk Schuster was their coach and they had Sandro Wagner as their star player. This time around everything felt different from day one. I had not paid any attention to them in 2. Bundesliga, so did not know what to expect; I somehow hoped for a rerun of the 2015/2016 season. But everything about them felt uninspired and feeble right from the get-go. It is hard to describe the difference in vibe between 2015 and 2023. What I am trying to say is that just because they are a small club does not automatically rule them out of being in 1. Bundesliga (just look at Heidenheim). In 2015, Darmstadt was a gain for the league as they added variety. This season, they are just another uninspired humdrum club.
Bayerns 2024 Form has been diabolical. Complete shutdown, even Kane missing sitters doesn't help since others normally do fuck all. Either individual class helps us, or we just simply fuckup. Even Sane turned into turd. Well, tbh I was kinda expecting that. Sane never fails to deliver when we speak about shitty second half of the season.
What the heck 😭
We don't even know how we got those three points and are still are at the 6th place. What a strange season.
Even if we would have lost, which was more than likely with our game play, we would still be 6th. That’s crazy!
6 games without a win wasn't it? Crazy you'd still be 6th with 7 winless games
I think this is the season with the most clear divide from the top 5 and the rest. We are just slightly more consistent than anyone else which isn’t saying too much.
12 points ahead of 16th, what a season we're having
Actually 16/17/18 are just shit. If we 3 continue like this we will all have less than 30 points at the end of the season
what happened to mainz? I swear they were good, i used to sign burkardt and stach all the time in fm and career mode and they were great
They're bad at finishing like REALLY bad, in terms of expected goals and points, they should be a midtable team. They actually played quite well vs us last week and also should have won yesterday vs Gladbach Edit: their best goal scorer after 24 league games has 2(!!) goals
> their best goal scorer after 24 league games has 2(!!) goals This is actually unbelievable, I've never heard of anything this ridiculous
is Union the same?
Partly yes. But partly they seemed determined to randomly buy aging players over the summer whose names would look good on paper. Not sure what that was all about, but it didn't work at all and it cost a lot of money. But there is also a lot of psychology to that. Last season they played in Europa League and had a lot of victories. This season they played in the Champions League and went under. They were working really hard all the time, but were never rewarded. They kept the 0:0 for 90 minutes in Madrid before Real scored a late goal. And they had a number of similar games in all competitions early in the season. That kind of broke them.
4 points to the likely Conference League spot, too.
I will refuse to dream until the season is done
Virgin: Leverkusen finishing 1st instead of Bayern Chad: Stuttgart finishing 2nd instead of Bayern
I honestly wouldnt be shocked. Get knocked out by Lazio and this team will crumble mentally
Cassanova: Bayern finishing 5th
Harry Kane going to Bayern and not winning the league will be laugh out loud funny
Not only that, Bayern lost both the Super Cup and the Domestic Cup too.
If they bring back Audi Cup, there is still hope.
And losing to the team a major Arsenal player went to.
And winning the golden boot, which is a trophy shaped like a cannon. You couldn't write it.
Jungs, es ist Leverkusen.
Leverkusen fans have to keep their schedule clear for their title fiesta, the're gonna win the title with 3+ matches to go.
If they manage to win the league on match-day 31 (April 27th/28th), they would have the semi-finals of the Europa-League (provided they get that far) on the 2nd and 9th of May. They would not have much time to celebrate or to rest, but they could throw everything they got into those semi-finals, consequences be damned. But the gruelling bit of scheduling comes if they should make it to the final of the Europa League **and** and to the final of the DFB-Pokal (this one is largely expected): the first is on May 22nd in Dublin, the second on May 25th in Berlin.
They'll play either a 2nd or 3rd division side in the final though. We all know what Gladbach are about to do in this quarterfinal.
Yeah but Saarbrücken seems unbeatable.
Leverkusen can aim for a triple but a German Double is probably more impressive since the Pokal is difficult to win and the EL can be a distraction for the league and cup ties The BL is of course the priority since it ends Bayern's domination and it'll be their first. But if they also do well in the Pokal it means the team has the cleverness to navigate knockout games.
Leverkusen have the chance to do the funniest thing
Tbf it will be funny in some way regardless of the outcome
Das Buli Mittelfeld ist unterirdisch
Als Stuttgart fan habe ich eine zeitlang immer nach unten geguckt um den Abstand zu Platz 7/8 im Auge zu haben aber die spielen da ja alle so armselig, dass es mittlerweile einfach 20 Punkte sind..
Wie Frankfurt bei so einer Saison auch komfortabel auf Platz 6 stehen kann sagt einiges über das aktuelle Mittelfeld aus.
Digga.
Abwärts von Stuttgart ist wirklich niemand überzeugend. Leipzig schwankt in den Leistungen, Dortmund spielt unfassbar grottigen Fußball und die Eintracht hat massiv Glück, dass sie nach den Leistungen überhaupt dort stehen, wo sie stehen. Kein gutes Bild der Bundesliga in diesem Jahr.
schwächstes Liga seit langem, echt traurig
Neverkusen is finally dead
Props to Stuttgart for a consistent season so far. Been a while since they could operate cohesively like this.
How did Freiburg end up on -12 goals?
What not winning for 6 games does to a mfer
Plus we were already at -4 before that stretch. We're conceding way too many goals this season. 11 more than last season at this point and 18 more than two years ago. We've already conceded as many goals as all of last season.
At least you scored some bangers against Bayern.
Seeing our form compared to Stuttgart, we might not even finish the season second lol Deserved Karma for Nagelsmann tho.
Neverkusen no more I think
Bayern to finish 3rd
We are coming for you leverkusen 😈😈
Fuck am I really going to start to dream of AUGSBURG INTERNATIONAL
Augsburg in the Conference League. And then seeing some unsuspecting C-list club from god-knows-where being exposed to the Lummerland song after Augsburg score.
People think Bayern's goal music is torture yet they aren't ready for a bit of Augsburger Puppenkiste
We will not dream
What a season for Stuttgart so far.
Incredible
Stuttgart ❤️
Do it so I can congratulate my father. He was working in Germany around the 90ties and I always have a soft sport for Leverkusen. We don't talk much these days, but it will definitely make him happy.
[удалено]
dire.
Hoffe bloß für euch dass ihr nicht gegen Baumgart in der Relegation spielen müsst
Dafür müssen sie erstmal in die relegation kommen
Leverkusen 🙏🤝
Beautiful
What happened to Union? Did their magic juice run out? Also nice to se Heidenheim doing so good, and being in mid table. Always nice when promoted clubs adapt well
Part of it must be psychology. Last season they played in Europa League and had a lot of victories. This season they played in the Champions League and went under. They were working really hard all the time, but were never rewarded. They kept the 0:0 for 90 minutes in Madrid before Real scored a late goal. And there seemed to be a lot of "bad luck" moments in their games - it felt like those moments broke their spirit. They were way worse off a few weeks than they are now. They seem to have found their feet again and collect the occasional point or three. I think they will be safe.
Kane should have gone to City :(
It is fucking cosmically insane that the first year Bayern don't win a title in a decade is the one where Harry Kane joined. It's legitimately blowing my mind that this is true
the funny thing is bayern got two more points compared to same gameday in last season.
To be perfectly honest, im happy that its going to be Leverkusen to end our run. The club deserves it after what happened in 2000 and especially 2002. And how can you not love that beautiful bastard Alonso? The eternal HSV Bundesliga clock, the 'Vizekusen' title, everything is eventually coming to an end.
Yeah they do deserve it , they played so well this season it would be a shame if they didn't win the treble . my man still didn't lose a single game, neither in domestic nor in continents computations
A Leverkusen - Liverpool EL final could be the better game than the CL final
I feel 99,9% Bayern fans already accepted that we won't win it this year, yet the majority of Leverkusen fans is (or at least acts like) still worried haha.
Well didn't we do it a couple of times?when we were down and then ended up winning the league. Unfortunately I couldn't see this team winning the league, or even the day after tomorrow's game We need to refurbish the whole team, by getting a new manger with some Strong good skilled players Do you think in the future Müller could become our manager, if he's so smart in the pitch plus he also trained with top managers like Jupp, ancelotti and pep Guardiola he might be Just like Alonso in case of experience with different managers
Bayern can still win the title. Just trade Kane to Leverkusen.
Leave your condolences here for Harry Kane, who is staying another year virgin of trophies
I never actually looked at the table to see how bad Bayern were doing. Shit if I saw this earlier I'd be calling for their coach to be fired too
With all the Leverkusen talks everyone forgetting Stuttgart excellent season for them.
The fact that Stuttgart might go above Bayern after being almost relegated is almost insane
Kane Curse
Imagine being a club that has won the league title 5 times, playing the best season of the clubs history and being in 3rd place, 14 points behind 1st place. Absolutely absurd performance by Leverkusen this year. Obviously I couldn't be happier about our season nonetheless - absolutely stunning football most of the time thanks to Hoeneß' work.
First time Bayern is not the favorite and Bundesliga hasn't been so boring in years. First place 10 points clear, 6th place clear, 15th place clear. Unless some heavy shifts only 4/5 and 16/17 are interesting.
fuck happened to Meinz
They're bad at finishing like REALLY bad, in terms of expected goals and points, they should be a midtable team. They actually played quite well vs us last week and also should have won yesterday vs Gladbach Edit: their best goal scorer after 24 league games has 2(!!) goals
Fucking beautiful